


indestructible

by keouil



Series: we can be divine [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 (Naruto)-centric, Gen, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26564284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keouil/pseuds/keouil
Summary: naruto, sakura, sasuke and the bonds that hold up the world.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Series: we can be divine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1931971
Comments: 2
Kudos: 58





	indestructible

**Author's Note:**

> team seven, after.

to say they were a little dysfunctional was probably the biggest understatement of the century.

 _dai nana han_ , people used to call them at one point. not particularly following any numbered roster, their newly-appointed sensei remembers casually asking the hokage then how they ended up with that number despite having no predecessor nor successor. he vaguely remembers the kind of amused smile plastered on the sandaime’s face when he heard the question. all he offered in response was – _because you need all the luck you can get._

it wasn’t until they returned home from the land of the waves that involved a healthy amount of _bad_ luck, as one would have it, that hatake kakashi finally understood the cryptic answer in its humourless irony.

* * *

to be a team, truly be one in mind and body and soul, was to move like both liquid and fire and finding that delicate balance when existing within warring polarities. 

it’s found in a lone clan survivor fighting against his selfish survival instincts and a village pariah finding purpose outside his vanity and a poor civilian beating herself up trying to make all of them work somehow.

* * *

sasuke is selfish.

when you live to live alone for the better part of your entire life you find you have no need for side trips and trivial matters such as bonds or friendship or _whatever kind of moral bullshit_ his former teammates kept spouting at him every chance they got.

there is a breathtaking sort of loneliness in solitude, especially his. but then he has never really felt alone, even in his worst moments, with his unwavering hatred for the living always being a pleasant companion and driving force over the years.

still he greets isolation in the after years with familiar intimacy as one would to a childhood friend. because if there is anything in the world uchiha sasuke can count on for consistency, it’s that darkness will never fail to console and ground him back to normalcy again.

but sometimes on particularly bad days, he finds himself wanting to fight it.

* * *

naruto is more than a little loud.

with silence still his worst enemy every millisecond he spends not filling the void with ramen or missions or goals he hears _absolutely nothing_. and still, even after everything, it is the _deafening quietness_ that comes with his particular brand of lonely that he hates the most. 

sometimes he can still hear it talking back to him almost tauntingly, as if all those years of trying to be friends with this flaming ball of anger have been for nothing. he still sees red and he grows even more confused because iruka-sensei once told him red was the color of love and so he is always racking his brain _why, why, why_ and _how, how, how_.

because despite his best efforts he still wants to be loved, to be _unapologetically seen and known for who he is as he is_ void of achievements and heroicness _,_ so bad he starts to love and unlove himself repeatedly just so he knows what it feels like. it’s not a good feeling, but it’s the only one uzumaki naruto has so he settles for its one-sided embrace than the voidless stillness that greets him whenever he stops.

* * *

sakura is second to herself.

people used to praise her often for being clever and getting good grades. sometimes if she was really lucky it was her hair or eyes that stroked her ego. but that was a long time ago, back when she had relatively longer inches to her namesake hair and fewer feet in height and she felt more viridian than mint.

now she is tired, _so perpetually exhausted_ , of past insecurities she thought she shelved off forever only to be violently reminded of how simple her resolve can be shattered. because as much as she has hardened herself growing up, her boys have always been her achilles heel.

it’s not easy growing up feeling worthless and needing to unlearn that feeling for the sake of someone not yourself and then forcing yourself to learn to self-learn it all over again but for your sake this time because the concept of self-love is so vastly complicated and yet another thing she’s apparently weak at because _no one taught her anything._

she exists a shell of her own person, absorbing herself like a sponge necessarily to adapt to whoever is currently the most gravely in danger in this lifetime. for awhile, it was sasuke. then naruto. then sasuke again. nowadays she goes on a case by case basis on whoever is spilling most blood on her hospital floor. but never her, _not once was it ever haruno sakura._

* * *

after the war, team seven are indestructible. 

the world saw them as brilliant, but they showed the world they could be _fucking majestic_.

on paper, they can show face. it’s the least they can do for being “war heroes” or “the next sannin” or whatever superficiality managed to filter through the shinobi grape vine about the highly esteemed dai nana fucking han. because people who survive war never really survive it so they cope with projecting insecurities and admiration into the next big shiny thing and it’s only by an insurmountable amount of karmic misfortune that –

_sasuke’s last name isn’t the only godly thing about him._

_naruto has been looking more and more like minato these days don’t you think_?

 _sakura the post office really owes you a gratitude fee these love letters are endless_.

but underneath the underneath, the very people in question find themselves mercilessly thrown back into the unforgiving states of their twelve-year old essences.

one where the last legitimate dynasty heir continues to battle the same demons that made him wet the bed at twelve, the misunderstood then glorified village idiot has imposter syndrome because of the abundance of praise he is now getting because why and how, and the weak little girl goes through personality changes by the hour and is always one surgery away from cutting more than just her hair.

* * *

sasuke hates them for dragging him back to this hellhole and naruto hates himself for forcing him to despite knowing and sakura hates both of them for never making her grow past it all. 

_(but at the same time she still finds herself sneaking out into the uchiha compound to make sure sasuke isn’t fucking gauging his eyes out and naruto always makes sure to ask her if she wants to come with when he visits and sasuke never acknowledges them when they come but he doesn’t push them away - which, for all of them, is something.)_

because just a little bit of something is enough for them to continue being everything. 

they are not perfect, in some ways even more broken than they have ever been, but they are trying this time. they try harder than they have ever tried in their whole lives and sometimes it doesn’t always work out because sakura has grown a short fuse but naruto is there to placate her and sasuke is glad to finally be able to see some darkness in them he can finally relate to.

for whatever they are now is something they know can never be fully nursed back to childhood innocence or youthful ambition, but this time their demons are out in the open for only them to see. in that shared private grieving for their past selves they reclaim the bond they missed out on and introduce themselves to this new version of their fragments they are wholly unashamed of. and maybe, just maybe, they heal together.

* * *

they share a bond deeper than cosmic tampering or earthly bonds, because whatever this connection was - it is mind, body, and soul in entirety.

**Author's Note:**

> 7/七 – sounds similar to '四/shi' considered lucky in japanese superstition


End file.
